Musical Director
Mike
Fielder, father of 4, grandfather of 4 and great grandfather
of 3, founded the South West Surrey Concert Band in 1983.
The band now has over one hundred young musicians and
performs regularly at venues around the County, including
Guildford Cathedral and Guildford Civic Hall, and has also
performed at The Royal Festival Hall in London.
It is at his school in Kent that Mike first took up the recorder and he hasn’t looked back since! Graduating to the clarinet, and via the Hythe Town Band on leaving school, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) Staff Band in 1951 where he was taught by Colonel Brown, winner of the Royal Military School of Music Casels Medal for Clarinet and the Clarinet Medal at the Royal Academy of Music, London. During his years with the RAMC Staff Band, he attended the Royal Military School of Music in Twickenham, studying clarinet, harmony, theory and conducting. Early in the 1960s, Mike became the RAMC Staff Band’s Solo Clarinetist.
He retired from the army in 1977, continuing to study with Peter Howes, Principal Clarinet with the BBC Concert Orchestra.
Mike has played
with the BBC West of England Orchestra, the Ernest Reed
Orchestra, Farnborough Symphony 
Orchestra,
Guildford Opera and Opera Belcanto at Crawley in Sussex. He
has also played bass guitar professionally at Holiday Camps
and Forces Bases overseas, and as backing for cabaret acts.
Since 1980 Mike has tutored many fine musicians, both in schools and privately, taking many up to professional standard and being especially rewarded by those who have gone on to chose the clarinet for their professional future.
Mike is the inspiration for the SWSCB and to him hundreds of young people and their families have and continued to owe so much. In March 2006 Mike Celebrated his 70th birthday with a surprise party with guests from the past and present membership together with close members of his family.